Recommendations: History & military history: In the shadow of the past

Andrew Holgate takes a trip back in time

The second in a planned trilogy of Tudor books (to be sandwiched between titles on Elizabeth and Henry VIII), this history of Henry’s wives manages the difficult feat of unearthing fresh material about these much documented lives. Starkey confesses in his introduction that the book, which began life as a television tie-in, rather ran away with him, and at 880 pages it is certainly intimidating in length. But his narrative panache and organisational skills ensure that the story rarely palls.

Impressively broad in its scope, this massive, magisterial survey of the Reformation stresses not just the pan-European nature of the event, but also the importance of the British split on subsequent attitudes in America (and therefore the world). What is particularly impressive about MacCulloch’s book is its